What's on your Christmas dinner table, aside from the food ?

[cakesandmorecakeswithcake]

We will have crackers, a small box each of hotel chocolate chocs & 2 scratch cards each (plus a pot of pennies to us for the scratch cards and a Christmas themed napkin each wrapped in a champagne glass)

Anyone else ?

Christmassy-looking crackers, and ditto paper napkins. No room for anything else when we have a horde of family round the table.
Though before it’s actually laid there will be a decoration consisting of a candle and bits of greenery from the garden, stuck into oasis in a bowl.

Just a Christmassy table cloth, crackers and napkins. I love looking at beautifully decorated tables in magazines - candles, elaborate flower arrangements etc, but in reality when you’ve got 8 people round the table there’s barely any room for all the plates and dishes - one person normally gets stuck with the gravy jug and no room on the table to put it down 😅

@cakesandmorecakeswithcake I like your scratch card idea though. I might pinch that one.

I love the idea of having things on the table. I usually take all the food in bowls etc so it fills the table, maybe we should do a help yourself from the kitchen this year and leave the space at the table

This is mine from last year. Lindt chocolate teddy on each place name, plus everyone had a little table gift on their seat.

Lovely table setting peachescariad.

This year ours will have a white cotton cloth, I’m thinking a centrepiece fashioned from baubles, rustic place mats plus silver chargers, chunky glasses with coloured stems, crackers and if no young attendees single tapers otherwise battery tealights. The food is served from the side buffet help yourself style with a few dishes of cranberry/bread sauce and gravy boats dotted along the table.

Nothing if we’re at home because we haven’t got a table. But as we’re at DH’s family this year, it’s my job to do the table.

I’m going with gold this year. I did navy and gold a couple of years ago, so I’m deciding between burgundy & gold, dark green & gold or white & gold. Table cloth will be whichever colour I decide on (largely depending on price and size) with a gold runner down the middle, gold charger plates, crackers, battery tea lights (a couple of young children who will make a bee line for them, so can’t be real) and tiny wooden snowflakes painted gold. I’ve got some glass etching cream so I’ve etched everyone a wine glass with their name on it and they’ll be on those card coasters with the mouths on that sort of hook on your nose. I’ve also got a small cellophane bag for each setting with a hot chocolate stirrer and candy cane, a Lindt Father Christmas, a scratch card, party poppers and some bits to entertain the children. There’ll also be a box of After Eights (just so the children can have fun getting them from their foreheads to their mouths) and the Five Second game (just some cards and a small timer; you get five seconds to name three hair styles or wet things etc).

There’s nothing elegant or stylish about it at all, but the DC don’t get bored, they have lots of fun and that makes everyone happy, and we get lots of family photos, which makes MiL happy.

@peachescariad what a lovely table! We just have the usual crackers and candles. Normally eat around 4:30- 5pm. Just 4 of us these days - me, DH, DS and my old mum! we take Christmas to her as she is mostly housebound.
We stick some good tunes on and have a chilled out time.
We normally do a pub quiz type game with the coffee at the end of meal. I cook these days (used to be mum!) It's a roast dinner for 4 so easy as anything- pudding from M&S
DH and I wash up and mum puts her feet up. DH and myself (and adult DS) have a good few drinks and totter home (5 mins round the corner) around 9.30pm and continue our party. 🍾🍻

We will be at my elderly parents' for the 4th year in a row. I will be doing everything but just at their house, They have quite a small dining table and my dad gets very irritable with everything stuff on the table so it will just be plates and glasses.

in previous years in my own home I usually did greenery on the table with red/white flowers such as amaryllis. One year I put potted poinsettia in a trough which I then wrapped in dark green Matt tinsel. That looked lovely